UPDATED: 1984 — When Women Stopped Coding - NPR: Planet Money Podcast
#576: When Women Stopped Coding
Sat 18 October, 2014
00:0018:32
NPR: Planet Money Podcast
Money makes the world go around, faster and faster every day. On NPR’s Planet Money, you’ll meet high rollers, brainy economists and regular folks — all trying to make sense of our rapidly changing global economy.
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More: #576: When Women Stopped Coding - NPR: Planet Money Podcast
UPDATE—as requested —FNB’s synopsis:
Gender Bias in Advertising is the reason women stopped coding. At some point home computers became possible, those who marketed them couldn’t conceive that there were nerdy women who might want to purchase them. The vast majority were purchased by men.
This gave young men in college computer classes an advantage —they had taken and passed and unwritten prerequisite and were already very familiar with computers and basic coding. Professors unwittingly began teaching to these students, leaving those without experience feeling out of place. Many, mostly women, eventually changed majors.
As many of the original coders were women (as explained in the podcast) this represented a change in the gender make-up of the computer nerd world.